India presses Moscow to release 55 citizens still serving in Russian army

New Delhi has demanded that Moscow immediately locate and discharge the 55 Indian nationals still believed to be serving in the Russian military, as the human and economic toll of the Ukraine war hits closer to home.

The demand was raised during a recent meeting of the India-Russia consultative committee. According to details shared after the high-level meeting, Indian officials pressed their Russian counterparts for the immediate release of those remaining, while domestic law enforcement agencies crack down on the unscrupulous recruitment networks that lured them to the front lines.

The scale of the recruitment crisis

The latest figures show how deeply Indian families have been drawn into the conflict. Around 140 Indian nationals who were recruited into the Russian armed forces have now been discharged and sent home. However, the fate of dozens more remains uncertain.

Last month, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri revealed that the government had tracked at least 227 Indian nationals recruited into the Russian army. Of those, 139 had been discharged at the time, but 51 had died. The updated figures show that while a few more have been successfully repatriated, at least 55 remain active or missing in the war zone.

The Indian government has repeatedly warned its citizens against taking up lucrative job offers that end in military deployment.

Rising dangers for Indian seafarers

The danger to Indian lives is not confined to the trenches. In July, Russian cruise missiles struck the cargo ship Golden Leo near Ukraine’s Greater Odesa port. The attack killed nine crew members, including four Indian seafarers.

This has raised serious alarms in New Delhi. India currently provides about 12 per cent of the world's merchant navy sailors, and the government hopes to increase that share to 20 per cent. With so many Indian seafarers working on commercial vessels transiting the Black Sea, the escalation of attacks on civilian shipping has put Indian citizens directly in the line of fire.

The economic shock to food and fertiliser

Beyond the human cost, the blockades and shipping hazards in the Black Sea are beginning to strain India's domestic economy, particularly in the critical sectors of agriculture and food security.

India is the world’s largest buyer of sunflower oil and relies heavily on Black Sea ports for its supply. But shipments have faced delays of up to 60 days, causing India’s imports of Black Sea sunflower oil to drop by 24 per cent this season to 2.48 million tonnes. Refiners have had to buy more expensive soybean oil and source sunflower oil from as far as Argentina to make up the shortfall. In August, crude sunflower oil landed in India at $1,496 a tonne—an 18.4 per cent jump from the previous year.

Even more severe is the hit to fertilisers. India imports massive volumes of soil nutrients from both the Black Sea and the Gulf. To keep supply lines open, Delhi has had to reroute orders to countries like Egypt and Algeria, but the costs are mounting.

The Indian government allocated Rs 1.71 lakh crore for fertiliser subsidies in the 2026-27 Union Budget. However, officials now warn that rising global import costs could force the government to spend an additional Rs 70,000 crore to Rs 80,000 crore just to keep local fertiliser prices stable for farmers.